Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

Here is more from Dr. James Norwood about Oswald's amazing ability to speak Russian. The idea that he taught himself Russian is absolutely moronic. No way/No how. 

Jim,

The "better explanation" is that the Oswald who traveled to the Soviet Union in 1959 was fluent in Russian beyond the level of even most specialized intensive language training. 

In my book, I prepared a detailed timeline of Oswald's years in the Marines.  From late 1956 through early 1959, we have detailed records of Oswald's service in the Marines.  There are not enough gaps in his duties and assignments to allow for intensive language study.  Moreover, he was traveling around to so many locations that there was no opportunity for a sustained period of study in a single locale.

You mentioned the year 1958 as crucial, but you offer no specific times when Oswald could have been studying Russian.  In fact, 1958 is the year where we have some of the most detailed records of Oswald's activities in Japan.  As the majority of his time is spent in Japan, how could he have been in Monterey?  The records from Japan are so detailed that we know he was being treated on seven different occasions for venereal disease.  Clearly, Oswald was busy in the year 1958, but there is not a scrap of evidence that studying Russian was part of his routine.  Specifically, what dates in 1958, or any other year, do you see as the window for possible foreign language training?  As indicated by Dennis in his post, there were no intensive language programs in Japan, and a "six-month hiatus" would have been the minimal expectation for such training.

There is a fascinating incident where Oswald dated a relative of one of his fellow Marines in Southern California.  The young woman was eagerly teaching herself Russian through the Berlitz language records.  They met on the date, and she later reported that Oswald's Russian was better than she had expected of a Marine.  More evidence comes from Ruth Paine, who regularly conversed with Oswald in Russian and even addressed him as "Harvey."  It becomes clear that Oswald actually preferred speaking Russian, as opposed to English. 

A specialist in Slavic languages studied the audio recordings of Oswald's voice and detected evidence of a Slavic dialect.  Another Slavics scholar studied samples of Oswald's writing and concluded that he was writing English as a second language--not as a native speaker of English. 

And what about Oswald's voice?  In my book, I have written a lengthy section on why Oswald should have spoken with a Southern accent, exactly like his brother Robert.  How did Oswald "lose" his Southern accent?

There is simply too much evidence pointing to the Oswald killed in Dallas by Jack Ruby as a man who was a native Russian speaker.  I'm entirely open to the possibility of Oswald receiving specialized language training.  But thus far on the thread, I haven't seen any new evidence or ideas that are convincing that he learned his Russian in the classroom.

James